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This paper comprises a theoretical study of factors influencing the utility of organisational downsizing. Companies downsize in order to adapt to lower demand or as a means to improving efficiency, i e to improve their performance/cost ratio. With perfect information and no legal or ethical restrictions, management would remove employees with the lowest utility. This information is normally lacking and downsizing is instead based on a headcount or on total salary cost reduction. The efficiency of such measures will then be a function of the correlation between salary and utility. Different downsizing outcomes are calculated on the basis of different assumptions; some of these outcomes increase efficiency while others would probably lead to continued decline. Many companies are subject to legal restrictions such as Last In First Out tenure requirements. This leads on to an analysis of relationships among utility, salary and period of employment. Break‐even analyses are computed showing on what terms it would be worthwhilefor management to offer longterm employees early retirement.

This paper provides a brief account of the work of the PEI since its inauguration. Furthermore, a number of current issues are discussed such as the way the scope of the subject has been extended to broader issues including intellectual capital and the balanced score card. A final conclusion is drawn that while much has been achieved by the PEI and others, there are still many central measurement issues to be resolved in the future.

Gives an account of Swedish industrial relations and discusses the decline of the classic Swedish harmony model. Analyses historically high unemployment figures. Makes a presentation of HRM as a profession in Sweden including the speciality of human resource costing and accounting. Uses Marxist, pluralist and rationalist models to explain the gap between theory and practical implementation of HRM. Discusses the HRM consequences of Sweden joining the EU and the future prospects for Sweden in a world economy.

Selection utility models have been developed over a number of decades and in recent years a standard terminology has been developed for evaluating the financial outcome of selection procedures. The aim of the present study is to analyse some of the features of the basic models and to show that they can be formulated in ways which will identify economic breakeven points and clarify decision-making for HR professionals. It is shown that the standard deviation of monetary job performance and length of expected employment are much more sensitive variables than selection ratios and validity coefficients and that this is especially the case when length of employment is a function of test validity.